How much old rum is in old rum !

[JOHN REEKIE]

The trend, and delight, for ever older and older rums has become a distillers market. In Scotland it is said that they could never run out of aged scotch. Is this true in the Caribbean. Some rum distillers might have a few thousand barrels of old rum. But with "The Angels Share", each year this keeps on evaporating, while it matures into even better reserve rums.

An artical in a Trinidad paper By Raffique Shah "Caroni's aged rum stock valued at up to T&T Ů billion." Printed Sept 24, 2000.  Raffique points out that only 20% comes from old stock mixed with new alcohol. Followed by being cut with distilled water so that only 4% of old stock is actualy in a bottle of old rum.

What ever it claims to be -5yr,-8yr,-15yr,-21yr,-etc, is the quantity of old rum in a blend actually less as the claimed bottle age incresses?. Also why can some distillers/bottlers claim that their rums contain rums -"up to 8yrs old"- while others clain  that the -"youngest rum in blend could be 8yrs old"?. Like Scotch its time we had a standard in the Rum Industry to promote the product honestly in an international market.

For Raffique Shah: look up www.trincenter.com/Raffique/Sept/caroni.

I look foward to your coments as I go home to sip a 21yr old from Jamaica.

John Reekie     jr_ rumsearching@hotmail.com

[Ed Hamilton]

You've got it in a nutshell. There is no standard, only national laws like in the US where the age can only be the youngest rum. But who's kidding.  It is possible to gauge a rum by drinking it, the younger rums just won't hold up.

Unfortunately there is very little or no enforcement in the Caribbean of age certification except in the French islands where rhum vieux has to be at least three years old.

The age statement debate is one of the reasons we haven't seen ages on labels until the last few years.